Plasmons can be thought of as waves of electrons in a metal surface. More specifically, plasmons are charge density oscillations in a metal or other conductive materials. A light incident on a metal surface can generate plasmons similar to how wind incident on water can generate waves. Light can create plasmons, and the oscillating charges of plasmons can also generate light. The plasmonic-optical interactions give rise to interesting physics at the nanoscale. See also:
What is a Plasmon?
Nano-optics or nanophotonics is the study of light on the nanoscale. Typically visible light is limited by the diffraction limit and cannot be focused down to sizes smaller that about half the wavelength of visible light, less than hundreds of nanometers. Nano-optics deals with ways to overcome this diffraction limit in order to manipulate light at scales that are smaller than 100 nm. Plasmonics is one area of nano-optics. Plasmonic nanostructures can focus light to regions that can be less than 10 nm! Additionally, focusing light to such a small, highly-localized volume also generate extremely large optical enhancements in this nanoscale region. These enhancements can be used for applications including single molecule detectors
[1], enhanced spectroscopies
[2], cancer treatment
[3], and more efficient solar cells
[4].
Research in the Herzog Plasmonic Nano Optics Lab consists of:
See here for more information on these
Research Projects and Areas.
Interested in being part of the research group? See
How to join the Herzog Lab.
Apr, 2022 - Ahmad et al. publish article in Plasmonics Journal -
Ahmad Darweesh, along with other former Herzog group members, has published computational work in the journal titled Plasmonics. The work is titled
Near- and Far-Field Plasmonic Enhancement by Asymmetric Nanosphere Heterodimers .
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Apr, 2022 - Engineering students win National Robotics Battle -
A team of students from the R.B. Annis School of Engineering won at the National Robotic Challenge World Championship. The team won the Ultimate Combat Robot Battle Royale, where all battle robots from universities across the nation battled it out in a free-for-all melee. The UIndy Greyhound robot was the only robot left standing at the end of the competition which was hosted in Marion, OH.
Read more here.
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Mar, 2022 - Bauman et al. publish experimental work with ACS -
Stephen Bauman and other members from the Herzog group have published experimental work out of the Herzog Lab with ACS. The work titled
Tunable SERS Enhancement via Sub-nanometer Gap Metasurfaces measures plasmonic enhancement effects at the sub-nanometer level!
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Mar, 2022 - Matutes presents at APS March Meeting -
Joan Matutes did an excellent job presenting her work at the
APS March Meeting in Chicago, IL. The March Meeting is
a signature APS event that attracts a diverse international community of roughly 10,000 scholars to present and exchange ideas at the cutting edge of current physics research. Joan's presentation was titled
The Effect of Finite Element Mesh Style and Size on Nano-Optic Computational Electromagnetic Simulations.
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Feb, 2022 - Herzog Named IEEE Senior Member -
Dr. Herzog has been named a Senior Member of
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)! It's the highest grade of IEEE for which a member may apply. It requires extensive experience, and reflects professional accomplishment and maturity. Only 10% of more than 400,000 members have achieved it.
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Dec, 2021 - Matutes Selected as Shaheen Scholar -
Joan Matutes has been selected as a
Shaheen Scholar through the
Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences for her proposal titled
The Effect of Finite Element Mesh Style and Size on Nano-Optic Computational Electromagnetic Simulations. Dr. Herzog and Joan Matutes gratefully acknowledge the gift provided by Yvonne and Riad Shaheen to support this work at the University of Indianapolis.
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Nov, 2021 - New Article in Journal of Nanophotonics -
Herzog group publishes paper in the Journal of Nanophotonics. This experimental work was conducted by Dr. French, and undergraduate Senior Meredith Magee made significant contributions to getting this work published. The work is titled
Plasmonic enhancement of photobrightening in CdSe quantum dots.
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